Nick Parsons Project

There’s a debate that rages among internet radio users involving the infamous Pandora and the up and coming Slacker radio. Both work in similar ways – you build a station around an artist, song, or genre. The station gets smarter as you mark the songs you like and dislike. Eventually, the station should be a tailor fit to what you want. Both have free versions, and app’s for use on computers, blackberry’s, iphones and the like. I’ve decided to weigh in as I’ve spent an enormous amount of time with both:

PANDORA

The go to. It’s easy to use, and seems smarter off the bat. The free version allows for 40 hours of streaming a month, 6 song skips during any given hour of listening and 100 station builds. If you need more than that, you’re obsessive. Pandora is more no-brainer. Set a station, and you’ll probably be able to listen for 5 hours skipping only occasionally. It seems that the team who analyzes the tunes is VERY specific, so you’ll get more of what you want. This can be good, but also keeps your listening slightly stale as the feel of the music rotates very little (and when it occasionally does mix it up, watch out – your Journey station might host Papa Roach for a few minutes!). I recommend Pandora to anyone who doesn’t want to work hard for good music. Watch your listening limit however, because you can hit that 40 hour mark before you think! An upgrade is available for $36 a year that will eliminate ads (Pandora has fewer and less frequent ads than Slacker), gives you slightly higher quality music, and unlimited skips. The interface is extremely easy to use.

SLACKER

Slacker requires more attention, but rewards you for it. It’s basically free Satellite radio. The user interface can be overwhelming and confusing – especially on the web. The phone apps clean themselves up a bit, but they’re still a bit bulky. The songs have a much wider range of genre and style at first. The more you “favorite” people and “ban” people, the more fine tuned the station will become. Slacker also has a large library of suggested lists that people have built, many of which seem fairly tuned. As mentioned above, the ads are more frequent and annoying that Pandora, but still not excessive. The $3.99 a month upgrade gets rid of these ads, also adding unlimited song skipping, complete song lyrics, and a desktop player app eliminating the need to launch your web browser. I can’t find a listening time limit on Slacker, and have yet to hit it if it does exist. Anyone who wants a wide range of music, and is not afraid to do the legwork will enjoy Slacker more than Pandora – just beware of the learning curve, and don’t be afraid to experiment.

I firmly believe that the internet radio market will soon overtake the purchase music market. I will save the lengthy argument for a later blog, but suffice it to say, in a world where the information cloud is becoming bigger, why would anyone not want immediate access to all of their music online, wherever they are. That’s where Spotify comes in. It’s streaming internet radio you subscibe to. And not someone else’s mix. You listen to what YOU want, when you want it, wherever you are. Why would I buy CD’s, or iTunes songs for that matter, if I could listen to them online unlimited? Wouldn’t you easily subscribe to this if it meant you never needed to buy another album? You don’t own the music you buy anyway- its a license to listen to it. So why not have EVERY SONG EVER available to you at a moment’s notice via the web? Google has figured out the cloud theology, and have began to release it to the world – first with gmail, then google docs, now google voice. It’s up and coming and not going away. Spotify is still limited to only Europe, but when they finally get around America’s absurd copyright laws, WATCH OUT! It’s going to change the way music is done. Right now, we’ll have to live with Slacker, but its a start, and thats where I’ll be. The world is fast moving to having instant access to anything they own. Their documents. Their pictures, their music, everything. Jump into the cloud. It’s nice in here.

To read more, enjoy some Bob Lefsetz:

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2009/05/19/streaming-vs-ownership/